Home audio & video forum: HOW do you DELAY the Optical Audio?

You have 2 open discussions in 2 Cnet forums.

Your best bet is some Onkyo system.
Bob

This is only indirectly related to your problem. But I feel your pain. Most people seem to be under the misguided impression that running optical out from their tv to their receiver does the trick. And yes, the audio is synched up that way. But if the input to the tv is hdmi, the optical audio out is NOT 5.1. A lot of people don't realize this because 5.1 most receivers, even old ones, automatically generate a simulated 5.1 signal from a stereo signal coming in. So they hear sound in their center channel and subwoofer, and think it is working. The audio IS synched, but the simulated 5.1 is WAY inferior to actual 5.1 digital signal.

Once you hear the real 5.1, the simulated substitute is so lame in comparison it's really hard to go back. The surround rear channels are especially affected by the simulated stuff, but the fronts are too, and the sub, all pretty badly. The rears are just about gone altogether in simulated mode though. So then you have to buy a receiver with hdmi inputs, when you had a pretty decent receiver already, and the one you buy passes through video and audio and if you get a cheap one the video can get really screwed up. Plus it's much more complicated to just listen through the tv speakers like most of us like to do in the morning, or with the kids cartoons, etc.

The really ridiculous thing about it all is that any tv with optical out is totally capable of sending the 5.1 signal through. (It doesn't have to decode it.) If the signal is coming through the TV's internal tuner instead of HDMI input, they will pass out a 5.1 signal from the optical (if the broadcast is in 5.1). But the kicker is, it is because of this stupid, paranoid, Digital Rights Management that they have to downgrade to 2.1 any audio coming from hdmi inputs!! I mean seriously, what do they think we are going to do? Use the 5.1 optical out to somehow "steal" the 5.1 soundtrack from a movie? How stupid are the people that think this stuff up? Sheesh! A cheap optical audio delay would be awesome solution. Unfortunately the only ones I've found are like at least four hundred bucks. (End Rant).